Space Law, Scope and Status

Abstract

This chapter discusses the key concepts and principles relevant for the exploitation of natural resources in outer space. The chapter notes that international space law is defined as the body of rules that regulates the activities of States in the exploration and use of outer space. This approach is mirrored in the title of the main UN space treaties and their key provisions. In light of this functional approach to space law, the chapter questions the validity of traditional approaches to space resource exploitation, to the extent that they appear primarily concerned with finding physical criteria for distinguishing in the application of the principles of free use and non-appropriation, rather than with a definition of these activities. In particular, the chapter is critical of the possibility, as well as the necessity, of defining the concept of ‘celestial body’ in international space law as a means of excluding only mineral resources of celestial bodies from the application of the non-appropriation principle. The chapter finds that the most consistent way to interpret the celestial body notion in space law is one that defines it as a sphere of activities rather than as a self-standing physical phenomenon. Discussions on the exploitation of celestial bodies should therefore focus on the activity of exploitation rather than the notion of a celestial body. And given that the main principles on space resource exploitation do not distinguish between outer space and celestial bodies, their application should not distinguish between these phenomena either.